Government shutdown: Who’s at fault?

If the government shuts down — I don’t believe it will — who will you blame?

The Republican plan funds the government to the requests of the President and his political compatriots, except for the ACA (Obamacare). The President and Senate Democrats pledge to vote down and veto any bill that doesn’t include funding for Obamacare.

The Democrats are claiming the Republicans are responsible for the looming shutdown because they will not fund Obamacare. The Republicans are claiming the Democrats are responsible because they are being given a bill which funds the government except for the one part even the President and his fellow Democrats have delayed because of it’s logistical problems.

I have heard Democrats say that the Republicans are not willing to bend, but isn’t that also true of the Democrats if they also aren’t willing to bend?

Who will you blame and why? How does your reasoning not also apply to your side of the aisle?

Comments

I blame both. There is not only plenty of blame to go around, there is also plenty of incompetence, ineptitude, and idiocy based on dogma to go around. Imagine tying Congressional pay to their relevant efficiency. Imagine that if there was a shutdown they would not get paid. Imagine tying there pay to the deficit. The higher it goes the less they make.

I blame the Democrats for pushing Obamacare to begin with. The majority of Americans don’t want it, it will raise healthcare costs for all, increase the U.S. debt exponentially, etc, etc. SO the Democrats are to blame.

If Obamacare were more supported by the American people I think you could make the case that Republicans are the problem. They oppose it by double digit margins and always have. But we have Democrats who dont even think Obamacare is a good idea anymore.

Democrats pushed through a stupid law, that’s true. But it’s still the law and if the American people were all that interested in ridding the nation of it then they would have voted differently November of last year.

I blame the Republicans for what seems to be a bad tactical move. I think it is a mistake to play this out like this 3 weeks before another whack at the debt limit. I agree with the goal, just not the tactics.

I blame the senate democrats for refusing to allow any of the house bills to be voted or.

Ultimately the largest share of the blame lies with Harry Reid and the senate democrats who have abandoned their constitutional duty to write and pass a budget. We’ve been operating on short term CR’s for years. If a budget had been passed (of course it’s hard to pass something that hasn’t been written or submitted), we wouldn’t be in this situation now.

I do find it ironic that literally everyone, including P-BO himself, admit that P-BO care is a flawed bill, yet they refuse to actually address the flaws. Why is there so much effort being put into support for a bill which is acknowledged to be so poorly crafted?

Craig, youre right, everyone including top dems who helped write it and the unions who pushed for it who are now threatening to strike over it admit its bad for business and cost but wont try to fix any of it?

The rogue faction of the GOP is destroying GOP chances in 2014, which suits me just fine. The military will blame the GOP as will thousands of furloughed federal workers without paychecks. As for me and the rest of us who number in the millions without affordable healthcare, we’re cheering President Obama on, of course.

I really don’t see how the shutdown can be blamed on Republicans when they offered a way to fund the gov’t that was rejected because it didn’t fund Obamacare. As has been stated repeatedly, sentiment does not favor Obamacare and so many, including Dems and Dem supporters have problems with it. Why enact that which no one wants and most people find wanting in the first place? What is the alternative? Simply the status quo with which is the devil we know. By all accounts, that’s better than the one we don’t know.

Just after midnight, Harry Reid spoke about how it’s the Republicans’ fault because “all they had to do was pass what we passed”. That’s their idea of compromise. I’m not sure that arrogance is going to fly.

C2C it is flying because the democrats are better at PR. Republicans presume the people arent as dumb as dems know they are and theyre wrong. Thats how obama is able to never be blamed for any of his part.

The house has passed 3 bills that have not been voted on in the Senate. Not only that but they haven’t been brought to the floor. Why would Harry Reid block these bills from being voted on? Could he be worried that the support for P-BO care isn’t as strong as he thinks? From a political standpoint it could only strengthen the Dems position if they brought the bills to the floor debated and voted on them. At that point it would make sense to take the bills to conference and reach a compromise, but they don’t choose this path. As far as the PR battle, the Reps have basically made this about 2 issues; The medical device tax and the congressional exemption. Yet the Dems and the media choose to frame this as still being about defunding P-BO care, which is not accurate at this point. Again, why do the Dems want to defend these two hills so stubbornly. The congressional exemption is indefensible, and virtually everyone agrees that the medical device tax is a horrible idea. Why not compromise on these seemingly reasonable points and move on?

Are the Republicans offering to fund the ACA if they change three or four troublesome points in the legislation? Because if they did, I missed that part.
Regardless, the ACA was passed into law and voted on by Congress, the Senate and signed by the President. It passed a Supreme Court challenge. There were plenty of opportunities to change it or scrap it- and there was an election since that favored the party that passed it into law.
The Republicans at this point ought to fund it and work to improve it it or repeal it. The Right would never have allowed this same argument to stand if it was the Democrats refusing passage of any bill funding the Patriot Act or the Iraq War during George W.’s term.

I agree with George W. in one way. The republicans should let it go. They would probably gain a lot of support by saying, “You want it. You got it. Here’s what we think will happen: bad things xyz. And when they do, remember who warned you”.

No way, John. “You want it? You got it. They’ve called us racist. They’ve called us ‘the party of no’. Fine! Here’s what you want. YOU want it! And when your employer can’t cover your spouse, when you get laid off, when your doctor stops taking Medicare, REMEMBER! And vote Republican so we can straighten it out”.

Run ads showing all the crap that’s been said about the “racist Teabaggers”. Then show prominent Republicans saying, “You want it? You want it. But it will come with…” Then show what we said what would have happened and did.

I also agree with George to a point, it did pass and SCOTUS did rule, so we have to live with that reality.

. Where I part from him is when the very people who supported this mess (including P-BO) keep telling us that it is flawed, yet make no effort to fix the flaws. Shoot, P-BO been making changes by executive order to help keep his base happy. I was just reading an article in today’s paper talking about the exchanges and how they might be ready today and how exciting it is that they might work, but you’ve got to expect glitches, etc. Ultimately, the problem is once it is “in place”, it’s going to be almost impossible to fix.

C2C,

My hope is that all the folks who are screwed by this (higher premiums, getting hours cut, losing jobs etc.) can look at this honestly and vote accordingly in future elections.

I’ll accept C2C’s assertion if we can all agree what part of the legislation is flawed. My guess is that the President thinks it is parts that were concessions to get it past the House and Republicans think that it is the parts that no concessions were made on.

I hate to agree with Bill O’Reilly, but if the Republicans would just ask that we allow Americans to “opt out” for the first year, or at least not enforce fines for no coverage for a year then it would look like they were seeking a compromise and not throwing a tantrum over spilled milk. This would allow the ACA to be funded, get the government working again, and allow some time for people who are skeptical to see the ACA in action and bureaucrats to iron out potential “glitches”. Saying that they won’t pass a budget that includes funding for the ACA is not trying to resolve flaws in a bill- it is extortion.
Just like C2C- I hope that people take an honest look at how the ACA affects them and vote accordingly as well. I also hope they look at which party is forwarding the more rational position regarding the funding of a law.

The aca was drafted with no republican input and it was passed with zero republican votes. Democrats, when it comes to the aca have never allowed republicans to have any input. You cant blame them that now that they have some control they want some input. Also, the aca has been being funded since 2010.

The sentiment that we should fund it because it was made law is weak. Consider how little respect the president and his attorney general have for the law and it is hard to get worked up about demanding funding because it’s the law. What’s more, the idea that we have to go ahead with what still is replete with unknowns makes support for ACA a risky proposition. It would have been nice had there been complete knowledge of what was in this behemoth bill before it was passed, and I would imagine that the opponents to it’s passage were far more informed, in the very short time they had to review it prior to passage, than any of the chuckleheads who voted for it. Even the idiot-in-chief doesn’t know what’s in the damned thing.

Remember this admin saying it wouldnt defend DOMA in court because it didnt believe it was good law, or that even though SCOTUS basically nulled the parts of the Voting Rights Act that allowed the DOJ yo meddle in states voting affairs but the DOJ is still meddling. This admin has no respect for laws simply because they are laws.

Religious, political, and social commentary through the filter of a conservative Christian worldview. I focus on addressing why critic's arguments against my views fail rather than the traditional positive case-making for the Christian worldview.